Honourable Choice

This year, smartphone makers haven’t been (in our opinion) innovating much, but are instead engaged in an ‘arms race’ to deliver better specs, better components. The honor 5C is the same, aiming to do so with a lower price point.

The honor 5C unit we received comes with a white front and brushed metallic silver back. It has an 8MP front camera with an LED flash, while the back has a square-shaped rear-camera and fingerprint sensor. A fingerprint sensor on a smartphone at this price range is almost unprecedented, so this addition is a premium feature that’s much appreciated.

Next are the sides, with the removal dual-SIM tray on the left. One of its slots double up as a micro-SD slot and supports cards of up to 256GB, so it can really store a lot of content. We would have preferred the volume and power buttons on the right to be more textured, but they’re not slippery and have a good click to it so it’s not an issue.

At about 5.7-inch tall, the 5C is not very large so it’s not hard to use it with one hand, nor is it too small so watching multimedia content on it is still good. However, do note that the brushed aluminium back is a bit slippery and it scratches easily so it’s best to use a case with it.

Our experience using the honor 5C was a largely positive one. For one, it’s quite responsive and more than suitable for the standard use: browsing, multimedia, and even some simple games. But activate too many apps or browser tabs at the same time and the 2GB of RAM starts to show its limits. The fingerprint sensor offers a lot of utility, allowing us to browse the gallery by swiping on it, or bring down the notifications centre. Although, when compared to swiping normally on the screen, its response time is slightly slower.

The audio is average at best and lacks bass, which is expected with a device of this size. Display quality is somewhat better, with colour calibration available, but maximum brightness isn’t high so it hampers visibility under sunlight.

This smartphone would have been gotten our glowing stamp of approval if the cameras were better. The autofocus is not the slowest, but it isn’t fast either. And while it’s more than capable of good shots in well-lit conditions, noise level is bad in pictures taken in low-light conditions; this applies to both cameras.

CHIP CONCLUDE: All things considered, the honor 5C is a product that offers great value. Its overall performance is decent and the fingerprint sensor has some handy uses. It’s too bad the cameras aren’t all that great.